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Live Science makes predictions about what archaeologists will uncover in the new year. There are a number of archaeological finds and stories we might hear about in 2022. These include discoveries from Egypt's "lost golden city," new finds from Qumran — the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in nearby caves — as well as finds that may shed light on what life was like 11,000 years ago, when humans started building large ceremonial sites. In this countdown, Live Science makes five archaeology predictions for 2022. New finds from Egypt's 'lost golden city' In 2021 archaeologists announced the...

Tel Beth Shemesh was one of the first biblical sites to be excavated in the Land of Israel. The site is perched on a low hill overlooking the wide Soreq Valley, a main water source crossing lush agricultural land, on the border between the higher Shephelah (foothills) to the west and the Judean Highland to the east. Biblical Beth-Shemesh appears in the Books of Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles—notably as the place where the Philistines returned the briefly captured Ark of the Covenant to the Israelites (1 Samuel 6).In 1856, Edward Robinson...

The remarkable find was made at Penn Museum in Philadelphia, in the basement of the building where other archaeological artefacts are displayed. The skeleton had been left in the basement for 85 years before being rediscovered and represents a rare find. While the museum has other remains from ancient Ur, about 10 miles (16 km) from Nassiriya in southern Iraq, "Noah" - as the skeleton was named - is about 2,000 years older than any remains uncovered during the excavation at the site. The museum said the discovery had important implications for current research. Scientific techniques that were not available...

Francaviglia does not dispute that Muslims could have beaten Columbus to the New World. They certainly possessed the technological expertise to have done so; but, so far, there is no reliable evidence that they did. There are, however, very good reasons for thinking that they didn't. Arab maps were the best in the world, but none of the existing early maps demonstrates any knowledge of the Americas. Arabs also were prolific writers. Francaviglia thinks it’s virtually impossible that Arab explorers discovered the Americas and made no mention of the fact. Why then is the supposed pre-Columbian Muslim discovery of America...

A piece of history from the long war between Islam and Christendom was recently unearthed: a mass grave of 25 Crusaders who were attacked from behind and/or beheaded in the thirteenth century. According to one report:A team of international archaeologists uncovered the gruesome scene at Sidon Castle on the eastern Mediterranean coast of south Lebanon. Wounds on the remains suggests the soldiers died at the end of swords, maces and arrows, and charring on some bones means they were burned after being dropped into the pit. Other remains show markings on the neck, which likely means these individuals were captured...

Maddy McAllister had her first taste of scuba diving at 15 and has loved it ever since.(Supplied) Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article Maddy McAllister spent her childhood in south-east Western Australia listening to her grandfather's tales of ships lost at sea. Now Dr McAllister has turned her love of fishermen's tales into a career. As the senior curator of maritime archaeology at the Museum of Tropical Queensland, she spends her days overseeing about 8,000 artefacts recovered from 28 shipwrecks along the Queensland coastline. "I would spend my summer holidays snorkelling and exploring anything underwater I...

The little slave room contains three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest.Pompeii archaeologists said Saturday they have unearthed the remains of a "slave room" in an exceptionally rare find at a Roman villa destroyed by Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.The little room with three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest was discovered during a dig at the Villa of Civita Giuliana, a suburban villa just a few hundred metres from the rest of the ancient city.An almost intact ornate Roman chariot was discovered here at the start of this year, and archaeologists said...

The mysterious Tarim mummies of China's western Xinjiang region are relics of a unique Bronze Age culture descended from Indigenous people, and not a remote branch of early Indo-Europeans, according to new genetic research.The new study upends more than a century of assumptions about the origins of the prehistoric people of the Tarim Basin whose naturally preserved human remains, desiccated by the desert, suggested to many archaeologists that they were descended from Indo-Europeans who had migrated to the region from somewhere farther west before about 2000 B.C.

...The sophistication of the body’s mummification process and the materials used – including its exceptionally fine linen dressing and high-quality resin – was not thought to have been achieved until 1,000 years later. Professor Salima Ikram, head of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and a leading expert on the history of mummification, told the Observer: “If this is indeed an Old Kingdom mummy, all books about mummification and the history of the Old Kingdom will need to be revised.” She added: “This would completely turn our understanding of the evolution of mummification on its head. The materials used,...

A rare toilet cubicle from the First Temple Period, which was part of an ancient royal estate that operated at the end of the Kings of Judean period (7th century BCE), was discovered on the Armon Hanatziv promenade in Jerusalem, where the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David, about two years ago, uncovered the remains of a magnificent building which overlooked the City of David and the Temple Mount, including the private toilet cubicle.

A mountain of human remains and animal carcases have been found in Saudi Arabia's Umm Jirsan, a vast underground tunnel that spreads for more than than 40 miles created by a river of lava ...Researchers found the gruesome mountain in Saudi Arabia's Umm Jirsan lava tube, which is thought to be the longest network of its kind in the country, measuring 4,900 feet long and around 26 to 29 feet. The "extremely dense accumulation of bones" was found on the lava tube's western passage...

Experts believe they’ve finally found one of the holiest sites in the Bible — miles from where it was previously assumed to have existed. A biblical archaeologist organization, The Doubting Thomas Research Foundation, claims it has found the actual mountain where, according to the Old Testament, Moses lead the Israelites – a mountain that was enveloped in smoke, fire and thunder – and where, at the top, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. But in actuality, the society now claims, Mount Sinai, one of the most sacred places in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, is Jabal Maqla, which...

Archaeologists excavated the entrance gate of Magnesia's Zeus Temple in the Ortaklar district in Turkey's southern Aydın province. The Artemis sanctuary, a stadium, a theater area, 80 statues and various items have been unearthed in the ancient city so far during the excavations led by Ankara University Archeology Department's associate professor Görkem Kökdemir. Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Kökdemir said Magnesia was a prominent city in ancient times with its religious festivals held in temples and sanctuaries. "We think that the temple we found in this area is as important in the history of architecture as the fourth largest Temple...

A mass grave uncovered in Sidon, Lebanon, has shed new light on the Crusades and on the cruelty of medieval warfare, a new study in the academic journal PLOS ONE has shown. Archaeologists unearthed a large quantity of human bones in the moat of the Saint Louis Castle in South Lebanon. The area was first conquered by the Crusaders after the First Crusade in 1110. Some 150 years later, the Christian city was attacked and largely destroyed by the Mamluks in 1253 and then destroyed even more by the Mongols in 1260. Pursuing the idea of liberating the holy sites...

An ancient clay tablet shows that the Babylonians used Pythagorean triples to measure accurate right angles for surveying land.Students may not believe that Pythagoras’ Theorem has real-world uses, but a 3,700-year-old tablet proves that their maths teachers are right. The artifact, named Si.427, shows how ancient land surveyors used geometry to draw boundaries accurately. Discovered in central Iraq in 1894, Si.427 sat in a museum in Istanbul for over a century. Now, mathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales, Australia, has studied the clay tablet and uncovered its meaning. “Si.427 dates from the Old Babylonian (OB)...

Signs will be added to explain the ‘whiteness’ of sculpture plaster casts inside Cambridge University’s archaeology museum as part of a new anti-racist strategy. Plaster casts of Roman and Greek sculptures are said to give a ‘misleading impression’ of the whiteness and ‘absence of diversity’ of the ancient world. And the Classics Faculty at Cambridge University has revealed it will ‘turn the problem into an opportunity’, according to the Daily Telegraph.... ...academics will be encouraged to include ‘content warnings’ to lectures and reading materials.

My father gave me Werner Keller’s The Bible as History when I was a kid. I’ve been a sucker for Biblical histories since then. Keller’s been superseded, both by the deconstructionists who claim the Bible isn’t true and by modern archeology, which has added to and reinterpreted many archeological findings since Keller’s time. And last week, in Jerusalem, an archeologist discovered an earring that helps confirms one of the most pivotal stories in the Bible: The destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the Babylonian captivity.The Bible describes how the Kingdom of Judah, under Jehoiakim, refused to pay tribute to King Nebuchadnezzar...

Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the famous Trojan Horse.Archaeologists who claimed they had unearthed remnants of the legendary Trojan Horse in Turkey have now found significant evidence that further supports their claim, according to an article by the Greek Reporter. Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the Trojan Horse. These excavations include dozens of fir...

Archaeologists in Morocco have announced the discovery of North Africa’s oldest Stone Age hand-axe manufacturing site, dating back 1.3 million years, an international team reported on Wednesday. The find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years the start date in North Africa of the Acheulian stone tool industry associated with a key human ancestor, Homo erectus, researchers on the team told journalists in Rabat Before the find, the presence in Morocco of the Acheulian stone tool industry was thought to date back 700,000 years. New finds at the Thomas Quarry I site, first made famous in 1969 when a...

Mountainer Reinhold Messner, right, and colleague inspect the mummified remains of Ötzi the Iceman following his discovery in 1991. The famed mummy died from an arrow to the back on a high Alpine mountain pass 5,300 years ago. Now researchers are tracing his unusual movements right before his murder.A wounded—and possibly wanted—man, Ötzi the Iceman spent his final days on the move high up in the Alps until he was felled with an arrow to the back. About 5,300 years later, archaeologists are still unraveling the mystery of his death. Now, a new analysis of mossy plant remains from the...